The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has launched a campaign to stop a state legislative initiative that is designed to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, including Muslims. That initiative is known as American Laws for American Courts (ALAC).

This effort is made necessary since America has unique values of liberty that do not exist in many foreign legal systems. Among those guaranteed rights and privileges are: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, due process and equal protection under the law, the right to privacy and the right to keep and bear arms.

CAIR'sNew York Chapter led by Imam Aiyub Abdul Baki held prayers with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators last Fall.
(Getty Images)

Unfortunately, increasingly, foreign laws and legal doctrines that would restrict or deny these liberties are finding their way into U.S. court cases, thanks largely to the rulings of transnationalist judges. In some instances, these judges are permitting the use of Shariah to adjudicate disputes on their dockets.

The appeal of the American Laws for American Courts model for preventing such intrusions of unconstitutional foreign laws is evident from the fact that it has been enacted to date in three states: Tennessee in April 2010, in Louisiana in June 2010 and in Arizona in May 2011. And ALAC’s fundamental constitutionality is evident in the fact that neither CAIR nor anyone else has filed a legal challenge to any of these three laws, let alone succeeded in getting ALAC struck down.

Knowing that a legal challenge to American Laws for American Courts is hopeless, CAIR has stooped to launching dishonest and misleading attacks against an initiative designed to preserve our freedoms.

CAIR claims this bill would have the opposite effect — infringing upon Muslims’ and others’ right to freedom of religion. CAIR’s real motivation, however, is not to safeguard the U.S. Constitution, but rather to promote the insinuation here of Shariah, a totalitarian Islamic political-military-legal doctrine.

Shariah requires and enforces discrimination against women, children, homosexuals, atheists, members of other religions such as Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, as well as Muslims who repudiate the dictates of that doctrine.

A review of the actual language of the American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) legislation shows that CAIR is deliberately and falsely characterizing it as anti-Shariah. Unlike a constitutional amendment to the State of Oklahoma’s constitution that was approved in 2010 by 70 percent of the voters, neither term is mentioned anywhere in ALAC’s bill language.

ALAC’s very different approach was vindicated when the Council on American Islamic Relations succeeded in challenging the Oklahoma amendment on the grounds that it singled out Shariah law and therefore was ruled unconstitutional.

Instead, ALAC is crafted to prevent the infringement in our court system on individual liberties by any foreign laws or legal doctrines, a phenomenon known as "transnationalism."

How, one might ask, can an American organization oppose legislation that is crafted to form a reinforcing bulwark to protect our most fundamental freedoms against foreign laws that do not respect them? The answer lies, in part, with the nature of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

The Department of Justice has named CAIR as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood (and its Palestinian franchise: the officially designated terrorist group, Hamas). Evidence introduced in the Holy Land Foundation trial established that the Brotherhood’s mission in America is “a kind of civilization jihad . . . in destroying Western civilization from within” by our hands.

Using our courts to undermine our liberties and Constitution “from within” is one of the most important and effective techniques for advancing this subversive civilization jihad. Two federal courts have refused to strike CAIR’s designation as a Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas co-conspirator and/or joint venturer.

Specifically:

CAIR has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism finance trial in U.S. history, the 2008 United States vs. Holy Land Foundation case in Dallas, Texas.

No fewer than four CAIR leaders have been convicted of felonies, including terrorism.

CAIR has a memorandum of understanding with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, the world’s most powerful multinational organization and, with 57 members, its largest — second only to the United Nations. The OIC is, like CAIR, dedicated to the imposition of Shariah doctrine and the criminalization of any “blasphemy” against Shariah law.

The FBI has terminated relations with CAIR as a matter of policy.

The IRS has reportedly revoked the non-profit status of CAIR’s national organization.

CAIR is being sued for engaging in fraud against several of its members.

Yet, CAIR is allowed to mischaracterize ALAC as “anti-Shariah” in the campaign. Given the clarity of the language, one can only conclude that these Brotherhood groups are doing so knowingly for the purpose of deceiving the American people.

ALAC’s stated purpose is "AN ACT to protect rights and privileges granted under the United States or [State] Constitution." Our laws are clear, Muslims deserve the same constitutional rights to which all citizens of this country are entitled.

However, is CAIR trying to establish that Muslims are entitled to such rights (notably, freedom of religion and freedom of speech) but other people deemed inferior, for whatever reason (for example, for being “infidels”) may not be allowed the same rights as Muslims?

There are, of course, myriad areas in which Shariah is at odds with constitutional rights (e.g., women’s ability to divorce, inherit property, enjoy custody of their children and engage or refuse to engage in sexual relations, homosexuality, freedom of expression, etc.) In such instances, would CAIR have the Constitution defer to Shariah?

In fact, it applies equally to all foreign laws. Period. What is more, it does not preclude the application of any foreign law, including Shariah — except insofar as it violates constitutional rights or state public policy.

ALAC has been drafted in order to provide guidance so that legal disputes in our courts do not result in the violation of the fundamental liberties, rights and privileges enshrined in the U.S. and our state Constitutions.

Thanks to the guarantees incorporated into the Constitution, no U.S. citizen or legal resident should be denied such liberties. Ensuring that is the case, however, is why ALAC is needed, particularly with respect to women and children.

These communities have been identified by international human rights organizations as the principal victims of discriminatory foreign laws.

There is a certain irony at work here, as shown in an analysis of a sample of legal cases in the United States where Shariah has been successfully introduced to resolve the matter (www.shariahinamericancourts.com): The most frequent victims of the trampling of constitutional rights by foreign legal codes in actual cases in the United States, are Muslim women and their families.

CAIR’s stance suggests that it seeks to relegate all women — not just Muslim ones — to an inferior status incompatible with the equal rights they are entitled to enjoy under the U.S. Constitution.

In short, American Laws for American Courts is a necessary and constitutional initiative that protects our fundamental freedoms against all foreign legal regimes that would threaten them.

Representations to the contrary, particularly from groups like CAIR that are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization seeking our destruction, should be seen for what they are — fraudulent deceptions — and rejected in the most effective possible way: by ensuring that every state in the union joins Tennessee, Louisiana and Arizona in enacting American Laws for American Courts.

Brigitte Gabriel is an international terrorism analyst and the founder and president of ACT! for America. She is the author of “Because they Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America” and “They Must Be Stopped: Why we must defeat radical Islam and how we can do it.”

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for The Washington Times, and host of the nationally syndicated program Secure Freedom Radio. Read more reports from Frank Gaffney — Click Here Now.